Reading Comprehension with Metacognition

The ultimate goal of our reading program

The ultimate goal of Gemm's reading program is to give students the tools to be able to read with metacognition, i.e., with the ability to think critically while reading, to self-correct and adjust, using knowledge and experience to make sense of the text.

Our reading and dyslexia program builds toward this long distance goal in four sequential modules:

Stage 1/ Cognitive foundation -- memory, attention, processing and sequencing. 

Cognitive skills program

Stage 2/ Fluency -- reading mechanics
Reading fluency program

Stage 3/ Reading comprehension (literal) -- providing context and awareness
Literal (grade level) reading comprehension program

Stage 4/ Reading with metacognition -- thinking while reading (below).

Reading With Metacognition

Good readers use metacognitive strategies.   That is, they think critically about their own understanding as they go.   This high level ability to be aware of your own cognitive experience is the difference between a good and excellent reader, and an average or great ACT or SAT score.

Elements required are:

• Motivation and engagement
• Active reading strategies
• Monitoring strategies
• Fix up strategies

These skills are developed by being clear about the purpose for reading before reading, by monitoring understanding and adjusting speed to fit the difficulty of the text and "fixing up" any problems they have during reading, and checking their understanding of what they have read, after reading.

Practicing these skills requires fluency and sound reading comprehension. For many high schoolers thinking while reading, and metacognition are unpracticed skills.

How Gemm Helps Develop Metacognition

(for  middle schoolers and older)

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of a secure cognitive foundation.   Metacognition is not remotely possible until complete reading automaticity (fluency) is mastered.

Gemm Learning uses Fast ForWord Reading 3, 4 and 5 to develop metacognition. Almost all exercises incorporate thinking while reading such as categorizing, filling in missing words, picking up nuanced differences in similar sentences and reading while working on a higher level task such as putting a scrambled group of sentences into a meaningful order.  These exercise inferential thinking and abstract reasoning in a while-reading context.

Reading 5 also develops metalinguistic skills, the ability to manipulate an play with the language.  Children start work on this skill as toddler, rhyming being the most important early metalinguistic skill.  Later on these skills help But Reading 5 pushes this to a whole new level developing a comfort with the language in all forms.

Fast ForWord Reading 5 is for middle schoolers and higher only.  It is a challenging and sophisticated program that has a great record of success.  It pushes reading skills to their natural limit. Not many adults are able to complete it entirely.